Who RAMs the world?
When buying a new computer, you’re often looking for specs of a few things, usually including RAM. We know that this has to do with how fast your computer will run, but what exactly does your RAM do?
Well, RAM basically is what runs your computer. Random Access Memory (RAM) is a type of computer memory. RAM is volatile memory, which means that it is lost when the computer is shut down. This is opposed to flash or hard drive memory which is used to persist the data of the user.
So how exactly does RAM work and what is it used for in our computer?
RAM is mostly used for our computer to hold small pieces of often referenced data such as instructions for the computer to use certain software or keeping track of all the tasks that we may have open on our computer. This is why RAM effects the speed of our computer. It’s also prettyyyy
There are basically two types of RAM, and a computer often has both types. The first type of RAM is called Dynamic RAM.
Dynamic stores memory using capacitors that basically act like buckets that hold electrons.
Each memory cell has one transistor and one capacitor and represents a single bit. If the capacitor is full, it represents 1. If it is empty, it represents 0. The electrons, however leak from the capacitator. Therefore, there is a refresh operation that replenishes cells every 7.8 microseconds. This refresh slows down DRAM performance. As this technology is slower, it is used more for multi-tasking required memory. For software instruction data, Static RAM is used.
Static RAM, or CPU cache memory, is used for memory which we don’t even usually really think about. We have to remember that computers are very dumb and have to constantly be told what to do every time they perform any task, no matter how many times it may have already performed that task. In Static RAM, a form of flip-flop comprises each memory cell. Each cell contains between 4–6 transistors and the flip-flop technology means that the memory does not need to be refreshed, which makes it much faster.
However, as each memory cell has more parts, SRAM is also much larger than DRAM for the same amount of memory. It’s is also much more expensive. Like way expensive. For comparison, 4GB DRAM costs about $24. 4GB of SRAM costs about $1200. Therefore, SRAM is usually only used for processes that require the fastest response, such as CPU. Data is usually cached on the SRAM and referenced as required.
Now just take all the advantages of each type of memory and make them work together to get the best-set computer!
